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Teonaht: Difference between revisions
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Except for the genitive and the vocative, nouns exhibit "case" in Teonaht primarily through their articles. Only a scant few show accusative case in the form of an ending or a mutation, such as in the '''Nenddeylyt''' nouns listed below; so inflection will not be a problem for the learner of Teonaht. The learner of Teonaht will not be plagued by the fabulous array of cases exhibited, say, by the Finnish. In fact, case is blindingly simple. | Except for the genitive and the vocative, nouns exhibit "case" in Teonaht primarily through their articles. Only a scant few show accusative case in the form of an ending or a mutation, such as in the '''Nenddeylyt''' nouns listed below; so inflection will not be a problem for the learner of Teonaht. The learner of Teonaht will not be plagued by the fabulous array of cases exhibited, say, by the Finnish. In fact, case is blindingly simple. | ||
=== Cases === | |||
Teonaht is what I am calling an "Accusative Language" with a "split nominative." There are four major cases for nouns: Subject or nominative (Nom.), Object and Oblique Object (O), Possessive or genitive (Gen.), and Vocative (Voc.). The subject or nominative case, however, has two categories-- "agentive" (A) and "experiential" (E). | Teonaht is what I am calling an "Accusative Language" with a "split nominative." There are four major cases for nouns: Subject or nominative (Nom.), Object and Oblique Object (O), Possessive or genitive (Gen.), and Vocative (Voc.). The subject or nominative case, however, has two categories-- "agentive" (A) and "experiential" (E). | ||
==== Split nominative ==== | |||
===== Agentive ===== | |||
The agent performs the action of most '''transitive''' verbs and certain '''intransitive''' verbs, but its primary use is to express '''volitional''' action on the part of the subject: | |||
'''Il mabbamba (O) le betõ (A) htesa.''' | |||
"The ball (O) the boy (A) chases." | |||
===== Experiential ===== | |||
The experiencer (E) performs the action of '''non-volitional''' (often intransitive) verbs and the copulative: | |||
'''Li betõ (E) tabllysan''' | |||
"The boy (E) weeps." | |||
'''Tamol (O) li betõ''' | |||
"A child (O) the boy (E) [is]." | |||
The Experiential case expresses a state in which the subject is an experiencer, rather than an active agent, in the deed being performed. This often makes use of verbs we would consider transitive, like "hear," "see," "perceive." These actions don't involve quite the same voluntary action that "look," "listen," "touch" do, and Teonaht makes a distinction between subjects that make decisions and subjects that don't. The experiential nominative is also used with the predicate adjective or passive:<blockquote>'''Uanta li betõ.''' | |||
"Sad the boy (E) [is]." | |||
'''Lõ nrinarem li betõ lis.''' | |||
"His finding the boy gets" [i.e., "the boy is found"]</blockquote> | |||
==Syntax== | ==Syntax== | ||